Daniel Zlatkin, Composer, Cellist, and Educator
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Prisoner's Cinema (2011-14)
I. Surges, II. Splinters 
five cellos
10'30"

When people are put into a confined space completely absent of light, their eyes eventually start to produce images. These images are similar to the soft, fuzzy, blob-like shapes you see if you shut your eyes hard, but they can become quite vivid. This phenomenon is called prisoner's cinema, since people who have spent a lot of time in solitary confinement report it.

​I sought to create a tone poem of prisoner's cinema with my piece. The two movements represent two sessions of it. Surges depicts flowery, pillar-like bright light. Splinters depicts fainter, bleaker slivers of light, more spread out, occasionally bursting. 

Performances: 
-Robert Burkhart, Jennie Brent, Daniel Zlatkin, Lydia de Leeuw, Peter Sachon, National Sawdust, Brooklyn, New York, May 10, 2017.
-Andrew Plasier, Kelsee Vandervall, Daniel Zlatkin, Jessica Hu, Lydia de Leeuw, Britton Hall, Ann Arbor, Michigan, February 7, 2017.
-Robert Burkhart, Raman Ramakrishnan, Daniel Zlatkin, Stanley Moore, Rylan Gajek-Leonard, Bitó Performance Space, Annandale-On-Hudson, New York, May 5, 2014.
  
Daniel Zlatkin · Prisoner's Cinema (2011-14)